Rochdale councillors have backed calls to scrap hospital parking charges - and hit out at 'profiteering' private firms.
It remains a contentious issue in the borough, with councillors in Rochdale North still at odds with their counterparts in Heywood over how to deal with street-parking spilling over from Fairfield Hospital.
Heywood councillors want proposals for double yellow lines to be revised to cover a smaller area, but the disagreement is still to be fully resolved.
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However, Coun Danny Meredith, cabinet member for highways, says there’s a far more fundamental issue at play - the lack of free parking for hospital staff and visitors.
And his motion calling for the government to scrap NHS hospital parking charges across the country was backed - albeit not unanimously - at a full meeting of Rochdale council.
Coun Meredith - who is a trained nurse - said staff at Rochdale Infirmary had to pay more than £300 a year for permits, despite spaces being under-used by visitors.
He said: “Imagine what this £300 a year can do for the lowest paid worker within the health service. Let’s not be fooled, parking charges - including parking fines - for staff, patients and visitors are not paid to the NHS, but to outside private providers.
“For example at Rochdale Infirmary it is Imperial Civil Enforcement Solutions Ltd. This is wrong.”
Coun Meredith told the meeting that his colleagues in Wales and Scotland - where hospital parking is free - see it as being essential to staff morale and wellbeing.
But while the Conservative group agreed with the 'sentiment' of Coun Meredith’s motion, they warned it could have ‘unintended consequences’.
Councillor Stephen Anstee, tabled an amendment which instead called for ‘a diverse mix of parking solutions for visitors and, where possible, an adequate number of parking spaces for front line staff’.
He told the meeting that unlimited free parking could make it harder for people to find spaces, as it encourages people to leave their cars for the whole day.
“I would hate to be in a situation where families could not park and visit loved ones because the car park is full all day,” he said.
“I would like to see an intuitive solution investigated where a diverse mix of time-limited free-parking and long-stay parking is implemented. Of course consideration should be given to families visiting loved ones, receiving end of life care for example.”
And in a clear break from Labour's position he told the meeting that bringing in outside firms to manage parking was ‘not a bad thing’ where hospital trusts lacked the in-house expertise.
However Coun Meredith rejected the amendment on the grounds that Labour opposed ‘profiteering’ and wanted hospital parking charges scrapped. The Conservatives, he said, appeared to be proposing ‘different solutions’.
Passionate arguments were made both for and against the amendment by councillors from both parties, perhaps most forcefully by Conservative Coun Peter Winkler.
But it was former Labour mayor Coun Billy Sheerin who raised the biggest cheer of the night, after posing the question ‘if Wales and Scotland can do it, why the hell can’t we?’
The Conservative amendment was defeated after being put to the vote, with the original Labour motion then being carried.
Conservatives members abstained on the Labour motion, but there were still enough votes to see it comfortably pass.
It means council chief executive Steve Rumbelow will now write to the government urging the scrapping of NHS hospital parking charges. He will also seek the support of the Northern Care Alliance’s chief executive.
The full meeting of Rochdale council was held at Number One Riverside on Wednesday night (October 13).
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